Democrats Blast Issa Over Obamacare Subpoena

Top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are demanding that Republican Chairman Darrell Issa withdraw his subpoena for the White House Chief Technology Officer.

Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee's ranking member, and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, the ranking member of the subcommittee on government operations, sent a blistering letter accusing Issa of making unfounded accusations against Todd Park, reports The Washington Times.

"The evidence before our committee demonstrates that Mr. Park is an honest and exemplary public servant, and your unsubstantiated public attacks against his integrity are a deficient basis on which to justify a subpoena against him," they wrote.

"Rather than denigrate Mr. Park's reputation and impede his time-sensitive work, we request that the committee accept his reasonable offer to testify before the committee in December," said Cummings and Connolly.

In issuing the subpoena late Friday, Issa said his invitations for Park to speak in front of his committee had been rebuffed by the administration, but that Park's "long history of involvement in the development and rollout" of HealthCare.gov made his testimony crucial, reports The Hill.

"Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance and are rapidly approaching a point where they must begin to prepare for the possibility of having no health insurance," Issa wrote in his subpoena letter, adding, "They deserve your sworn testimony before their elected representatives about what went wrong."

The Democrats maintained that Issa's subpoena was taking Park's energy away from his work and could harm the efforts to get HealthCare.gov up and running.
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